Learning to Fly
by Spike'sLilMunkyChik
Summary: A songfic set after The Real Folk Blues Pt. II--obviously, some spoilers. I still find it rather hard to believe Spike died. Or maybe that's just denial--anyway, please R&R!


A/N: Hmm… This is undoubtedly the strangest idea I've ever had. Bebop and Pink Floyd…? But hey, it'd just be another in a series of rock songs used as titles, so I can do it too, dammit!  
   
Disclaimer: It goes without saying, but I don't own Cowboy Bebop or any of its characters. To those who do, you know who you are.  
   
"Learning to Fly" by David Gilmour. ©1987 Pink Floyd Music. Used without permission.  
   
  
Flashbacks in italics  
**Thoughts and song lyrics in stars**  
   
   
Learning to Fly  
   
**Into the distance, a ribbon of black  
Stretched to the point of no turning back**  
   
The wounded figure stumbled down the steps, feeling the eyes following his every move in shock. He didn't care. His vision progressively darkened by the second, and it was now blindingly obvious that he was quite definitely going to die. He didn't care about that either.  
   
An unnerving grin broke out across his face as he uttered a barely audible monosyllable—"Bang." At that, he collapsed on the stairs, not quite dead.  
   
But, oh, he was getting there.  
   
**A flight of fancy on a windswept field  
Standing alone my senses reeled**  
   
Julia had been taken from him again, leaving him to think of her every second as he had for three years. But he would only be alone for a few hours this time…and after that, the sweet dreamless eternal deep sleep he'd wanted for so long…no afterlife, no anything.  
   
A fatal attraction holding me fast  
How can I escape this irresistible grasp  
   
Where are you going?  
   
**…A dream?**  
   
Why are you going?  
His mind went through the scene he and Faye had played out earlier; just hours ago, in fact. **Feels like forever.** That look in her eyes as he had turned away from her—was it fear? Or (God forbid) concern? Could Faye have actually worried about him? The signs she'd given, and his ego, however bruised, said yes. But the emotion itself coming from Faye was surprising enough… and that concern being directed at him was doubly so. It was rather hard to ignore those five rounds she had fired as he left. Really got his heart beating—**In the literal sense, of course; it's a little late to think about potential feelings you might have had for her.** Apparently he'd let some of those feelings surface during that last meeting. I'm not going there to die—I'm going there to find out if I'm really alive. She'd seen through that lie—it showed when she fired five times as his form slowly receded. She'd probably realized his wish for death when he'd gone off to fight that crazy fat fuck.[1] Uh-oh…his inkling of a conscience was starting to kick in—damn everything. Why was this being drawn out so long? Wasn't he meant to see some bright light or something of that nature? Even a red fiery hell would have been preferable to this black void state of mind he was currently in. Or not… He was beginning to regret that Vicious had done the job so blasted half-assed and not just disemboweled him completely—Jesus, this was taking too fucking long.  
   
**Can't keep my eyes from the circling sky  
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earthbound misfit, I**  
   
Hey, this was more like it—a pleasantly dizzying, nauseous feeling. He was sort of half-conscious now. Someone was trying to revive him, though he was obviously too far gone now to really get anywhere. **Your loss.** He might be on life-support for a few months, deep in a coma, until someone decided to pull the plug. That was, of course, the worst-case scenario.  
   
Shit.  
   
**Ice is forming on the tips of my wings  
Unheeded warnings, I thought I thought of everything**  
   
The intrusive bastard who was attempting to restore him would get a nasty shock in a few minutes—as funny as the statement would sound any other time, Spike was damn determined to die this time. **Good God, I'm getting my humor back.** His sluggish heartbeat began to return to a healthy level. **Who the hell is doing this!?** Couldn't they just leave well enough alone, for Christ's sake?  
   
Then he felt the pain from the wound.  
   
Strangely, he hadn't really noticed how profusely he was actually bleeding—he'd made the connection in his mind that, yeah, he was going to die, but he'd never realized how unnatural it was to have more blood outside your body than in. And that, yes, it was going to sting just a bit.  
"Unh…" he muttered some unintelligible moanings as he simultaneously felt his consciousness return. His thoughts were rather thready and incomplete, but he could open his eyes. **Not good.** His eyes took just a little too long to focus and a little too long to process the image in front of him. But when he did, he realized he'd totally missed something when planning this little adventure with death.  
   
He'd forgotten Faye.   
   
And, of course, that little emotion that was slowly forming in the back of his head. **Caring?** That was it. Definitely wasn't love, not yet. Just caring and/or concern on a more or less genial level. Love would take awhile. Especially with those messy loose ends left with Julia. **But Julia's dead now.** Then he realized: **I'm gonna be dead too.**  
   
Dammit…why'd this have to hit him now?  
   
**No navigator to guide my way home  
Unladened, empty, and turned to stone**  
   
Now that he was here he couldn't figure out how to get back.  
   
**A soul in tension that's learning to fly  
Condition grounded but determined to try**  
   
He couldn't. He'd come this far…too far. Too late to stop nature's process now. He'd wanted this, he'd gotten it. His conscience would just have to screw off for now. Forever. It was over.  
   
**Can't keep my eyes from the circling sky…**  
   
An abrupt feeling of weightlessness overwhelmed him, and then nothing.  
   
It was over.  
   
[A/N: I'm gonna let these next lyrics speak for themselves. For those of you not quite caught up yet, Spike's DEAD. 'K? In case you haven't noticed, it's a little hard to write his stream of thought when he's dead. Besides, the lyrics speak volumes. (I think. ^_^*)]  
   
**Above the planet on a wing and a prayer  
My grubby halo, a vapour trail in the empty air  
Across the clouds I see my shadow fly  
Out of the corner of my watering eye  
A dream unthreatened by the morning light  
Could blow this soul right through the roof of the night  
There's no sensation to compare with this  
Suspended animation, a state of bliss**  
   
But his bout of ecstasy was short-lived…he felt a jolt, then a reconnection. **So I was only mostly dead…great.** He was only half-conscious, in that dreamy half-awake, half-asleep state that he was too familiar with.  
   
He'd screwed it up again.  
   
**Open your fucking eyes.**  
   
He did.  
   
He was back again.  
   
**Can't keep my mind from the circling sky  
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earthbound misfit, I**  
   
~~*OWARI*~~  
   
[1] Remember Session #20—"Pierrot Le Fou?"  
   
So, how'd you like? R&R, please…and have mercy—this was my first-ever CB fic.  
   
  


End file.
